Author: Andranik Taslakhchian

Armenian opposition blockades parliament

Andranik Taslakhchian
Taiwan News
March 9 2021

By AVET DEMOURIAN , Associated Press, Associated Press
2021/03/10 01:45

Opposition demonstrators shout anti-government slogans as they rally to pressure Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to resign in Yerevan, Armenia, Wednesday, March 3, 2021. Thousands of opposition supporters are rallying in the Armenian capital to demand the resignation of the country’s prime minister amid a heavy presence of security forces. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has faced the opposition demands to step down since he signed a peace deal that ended six weeks of fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, in which Azerbaijan routed the Armenian forces. (Hrant Khachatryan/PAN Photo via AP)

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Thousands of opposition supporters blockaded the Armenian parliament building on Tuesday to press a demand for the country’s prime minister to step down.

Nikol Pashinyan has rejected the opposition’s demands to resign over a November peace deal that ended six weeks of fierce fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, in which Azerbaijan routed the Armenian forces.

The political tensions escalated last month when the military’s General Staff demanded Pashinyan’s resignation, and he responded by firing the chief of the General Staff, Col. Gen. Onik Gasparyan.

On Tuesday, the opposition sought to build up pressure on Pashinyan by urging its supporters to blockade the parliament. Thousands of opposition demonstrators surrounded the parliament building and engaged in occasional scuffles with police.

Vazgen Manukyan, a veteran politician whom the opposition named as a prospective caretaker prime minister, predicted that the military will not accept Pashinyan’s order to dismiss the General Staff chief. “The army will not step back because it’s not just one man’s problem,” he said.

As part of maneuvering to defuse the political crisis, Pashinyan offered to hold a snap parliamentary vote later this year but rejected the opposition’s demand to step down before the vote.

Artur Vanetsyan, the former head of the National Security Service who leads the Homeland opposition party, emphasized that “we believe that that the elections mustn’t be held under Nikol Pashinyan’s rule.”

Pashinyan has faced opposition demands to resign since Nov. 10 when a Russia-brokered peace deal ended 44 days of intense fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh that killed more than 6,000. The agreement saw Azerbaijan reclaim control over large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas that had been held by Armenian forces for more than a quarter-century.

Pashinyan, a 45-year-old former journalist who came to power after leading large street protests in 2018 that ousted his predecessor, has argued that the peace deal was the only way to prevent the Azerbaijani army from overrunning the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region, which lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

Russia has deployed about 2,000 peacekeepers to monitor the peace deal.

Armenia Government Says Top General Dismissed, Army Issues Defiant Statement

Andranik Taslakhchian
US News
March 10 2021
By Reuters, Wire Service Content March 10, 2021, at 12:26 a.m.

MOSCOW (REUTERS) – Armenia’s government said the dismissal of a top army general at the centre of a political crisis went into effect on Wednesday, almost two weeks after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan fired him and accused the military of a coup attempt.

The army had demanded Pashinyan quit on Feb. 25, prompting Pashinyan to sack the chief of the army’s general staff. But that move needed the approval of the president, which he declined to give.

The standoff is a major challenge for Pashinyan, who was swept to power by protests in 2018 but has been under fire over his handling of last year’s conflict between ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Pashinyan’s government said in a statement on Wednesday that the general’s dismissal was now legally effective because the president had not signed the decree within the time allotted or gone to court under specific articles of the law.

“Head of the General Staff Onik Gasparyan … is legally dismissed from his post from March 10,” the statement said.

In a statement in response, Gasparyan denounced his dismissal as unconstitutional and said that Armenia’s political crisis could only be ended by Pashinyan’s resignation and snap parliamentary elections, the Interfax news agency reported.

“I will continue to serve the motherland and the Armenian people in a different capacity,” he said, without elaborating.

Another statement attributed to the leadership of the armed forces said it agreed with Gasparyan’s statement and his overall assessment of the situation, News.am and Russian media outlets reported.

“There is one solution to the current situation, it is in the message (from Gasparyan),” the statement was quoted as saying.

Pashinyan later proposed Artak Davtyan, the former chief of general staff, to replace Gasparyan, the TASS news agency reported.

Pashinyan has faced calls to resign since last November when he agreed to a Russian-brokered ceasefire that halted six weeks of fighting between ethnic Armenian and Azeri forces over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The deal secured significant territorial gains for Azerbaijan in and around Nagorno-Karabakh. The enclave is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but is populated and until recently was fully controlled by ethnic Armenians.

Pashinyan, who has rejected calls to resign, said he had been compelled to agree to the peace deal to prevent greater human and territorial losses.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Larry King)

 

Six more bodies found during search operations, Artsakh emergency service says

Andranik Taslakhchian
Panorama, Armenia
March 10 2021

Six more bodies were found during the search operations in southeastern part of Martuni and Varanda (Fizuli) regions in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) on Wednesday, the State Service of Emergency Situations of Artsakh’s Ministry of Internal Affairs reported.

The remains of the three were retrieved from Ulyanasar area of Martuni region and the other three – from combat positions of Varanda region. According to preliminary data, they were servicemen. A  DNA forensic examination will establish their identity. 

Since the end of the 2020 Artsakh war, a total of 1,496 bodies of fallen soldiers and civilians have been found during the search operations.

Newspaper: Decision to operate Armenia’s Amulsar gold mine is made

Andranik Taslakhchian
News.am, Armenia
March 10 2021
09:37, 10.03.2021

YEREVAN. – Zhoghovurd newspaper of Armenia writes: Zhoghovurd daily receives information from various circles that the permit to operate the [gold] mine at Amulsar will be finally approved in the near future.

Moreover, according to the information, during this period, even the GeoProMining company verbally promises the employees of Sotk gold mine in Gegharkunik Province that Amulsar will be operated in the near future, and the fired people can be employed there.


Protesters and police clash outside Presidential residence in Armenia

Andranik Taslakhchian
TASS, Russia
Earlier, the presidential administration announced that the president was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on March 13 to discuss ways out of the crisis

YEREVAN, March 13. /TASS/. Clashes between opposition supporters and the police took place on Saturday outside of the residence of Armenian President Armen Sarkissian, where he met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The protesters tried to break through the police cordon, but were pushed back by law enforcement officers. The protesters were chanting “Armenia without Nikol” and “Nikol is a traitor”.

Earlier, the presidential administration announced that the president was scheduled to meet with Pashinyan on March 13 to discuss ways out of the crisis.

Clashes erupt between opposition activists, police in Yerevan –

Andranik Taslakhchian
Panorama, Armenia
March 9 2021

Clashes broke out between police and opposition activists at a rally in Yerevan on Tuesday, as the latter tried to block all the entrances to the National Assembly building at the urging of Vazgen Manukyan, the prime ministerial candidate of the opposition Homeland Salvation Movement.

“We are blocking the building of the National Assembly,” Manukyan told protesters on Baghramyan Avenue.

Demonstrators tried to block the entrance to the parliament building from the side of Demirchyan Street, but police began to obstruct them. Clashes erupted between police officers and activists, with police starting to push the citizens back.

“We call on police not to succumb to provocations, we are not trying to enter the National Assembly, we simply continue our disobedience action,” ARF member Ishkhan Saghatelyan said.

However, police proceeded to push protesters back, including representatives of the media.

“The police have resorted to provocations,” Saghatelyan added.

Protesters demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his cabinet continue the rally, chanting “Nikol the traitor!”, “Armenia without Nikol!” and “Nation, army, victory!”. 

We owe you a happy and peaceful country – Vazgen Manukyan

Andranik Taslakhchian
Panorama, Armenia
March 8 2021

The opposition candidate for the post of interim prime minister has issued a congratulatory message on the occasion of the International Women’s Day. 

“Dear Women,

Today is one of the days we should reaffirm our love and gratitude to you, to tell you are the inspiring force of our country, our future and dreams, the one who continue our national code and you carry on that mission even in the 21st century. We fought together and created our independence, won the war, overcame the years of the cold and darkness, and you were the ones who carried most of the burden of those days,” the message said. 

In Manukyan’s words, women never gave up to have a peaceful and prosperous country, yet told their sons and husbands that the motherland is the most precious and when the moment came you devoted the most beloved you had to the motherland. 

“Dear mothers, I bow to you as you are the ones who gave birth to those heroes.  Dear women, you are desperate today with lost dreams and severe grief. We owe a happy and peaceful county to you, a motherland our heroes deserve,” Manukyan said. 

Armenian movement leader: Surveillance cameras at Yerevan cafe can show that Artur Mkrtchyan was there at that hour

Andranik Taslakhchian
News.am, Armenia
Feb 21 2021
11:56, 21.02.2021

Green Future environmental movement leader Vahagn Varagyan posted the following on his Facebook page:

“After the comment that I posted on my Facebook page yesterday in regard to Chairperson of the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction Artur Mkrtchyan, various human rights activists and journalists have been asking me questions about the incident that took place yesterday. With full responsibility and clearly aware about the grave crime, I insist that yesterday at around 10:00-11:00 p.m. Chairperson of the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction Artur Mkrtchyan screamed the following during a telephone conversation at Triumph Café located at Isahakyan Street.: “Who cares if they have minor children and they can’t be deprived of liberty by law, they swore at the director of the National Security Service, they need to be sentenced, do whatever has to be done to sentence them, boy.”

Not only my friends who were with me, but also the surveillance cameras in the café can affirm the fact that Artur Mkrtchyan was at Triumph Café at that hour and was mixed up and walking from one table to the next while talking on the phone. Moreover, it is suffice to check to see which person with three minor children was arrested by the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction yesterday after 10 p.m., and it will be clear as to which person was unlawfully arrested by the direct assignment of Artur Mkrtchyan. I am ready to be interviewed by any investigative body in regard to these facts. At the same time, I ask everyone to view this Facebook post as a report on crime.”

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